


semblance

by blackkat



Series: Contraption [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Families of Choice, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:15:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: It's a hell of an adjustment period, coming off six years of being a mindless drone, andhappythat way. Fox doesn't have the luxury of time, though, not with a kid to take care of and the whole galaxy out to get him.He might have more people in his corner than he knows, though.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Luke Skywalker, past CC-2224 | Cody/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: Contraption [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706854
Comments: 117
Kudos: 1260
Collections: Best of Fanfiction, Commander Fox





	semblance

**Author's Note:**

> Shank is, as ever, the creation of the wonderful, terrible Sol, who kindly lent him to me for this series. He'll feature more heavily in coming installments.

Vader never comes back for him, so Fox simply never leaves.

The apartment is practically bare, with clear signs that Luke has been the only one living in it. Of the two bedrooms, only one has been used, and even then, not the bed. The blankets are missing from it, though the pillow is still there, and for a moment Fox stands there, staring, and then looks down at the little boy still attached to his arm.

“Not a fan of mattresses?” he asks a little dryly.

Luke hesitates, looking like he isn't sure how he’s supposed to answer, and his hand tightens around Fox’s wrist. “It’s cold,” he says, “and big. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You were sleeping somewhere else?” Fox asks with a frown. That’s potentially good where security is concerned, but—

Luke nods solemnly, tugging Fox out of the room. He heads right for the fresher, pushing the door open. Every light is on, and it’s like someone dialed up the brightness as high as it would go, leaving Fox squinting in the glare.

“Here,” Luke says, opening the shower door. Inside, all the blankets are tangled up in a makeshift bed, and Luke pauses. “I like it when it’s bright,” he says. “It makes me think of being home.”

Fox swallows. Thinks of a kid so desperately lonely and out of place that this was the only part of the apartment that felt safe, and breathes out. “I get that,” he says gruffly. “But I don’t think I'm going to fit in there. Not for sleeping.”

Luke's eyes widen, and he immediately grabs on more tightly, practically about to climb Fox’s arm. “You're going to _stay_?” he asks, and the excitement only barely covers the relief.

“Yeah,” Fox says, and pulls his arm back. Luke lets go instantly, but instead of drawing away, Fox catches his hand, squeezing gently. “I'm going to be with you all the time, since I'm your guard, all right?”

“Okay,” Luke says, pure relief, and tugs free to start pulling the blankets out of the fresher. “I can sleep in the room now, I'm not scared anymore.”

That makes one of them, Fox thinks wryly, and closes his eyes. Takes a breath, then nods and goes to help, picking up a pile of sheets. “Where’s your home?” he asks. He can't remember any rumors about Anakin Skywalker beyond those linking him and Senator Amidala, but that hardly means there weren’t any other women who might have carried his child. He was a war hero, and far from Coruscant most of the time.

“Tatooine!” Luke says, and wrinkles his nose. “It’s got two suns so it’s hot and bright all the time, and there are womp rats and Sand People so I can't go past the edge of the farm.” A hesitation, careful, wary, and he looks up at Fox. “Do you think Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen are okay? That man came and told them he was taking me back and they yelled at him, but that just made him mad.”

Vader getting mad has never spelled anything good for the fates of those he’s mad at, and Fox tries not to grimace, to let his doubt show on his face. “I don’t know,” he says. Wishes there was a better answer, but—with Vader there's no telling. Sometimes he’s merciful, but more often he’s not, and if he really wanted to grab Anakin's son, he wouldn’t let two civilians stop him.

“Oh,” Luke says quietly, and dumps his load of blankets on the bed. He stares at them for a moment, but not like he’s seeing them, and Fox winces.

He has no idea what to do with kids. There were a few, sometimes, when a senator’s family would accompany them to the Senate Building, but Fox only ever interacted with them briefly, in full armor, and he was rarely more to them than an intimidating guard or a shiny prop. But—there's nothing he can do here. If he tries to go looking for information on a world outside the Empire, for people so obviously related to the child now in his care, Vader will notice immediately, and Fox can't risk punishment. Not when he’s sure it won't be _him_ getting punished, but another clone.

“Luke,” he says quietly, sinking down on the edge of the mattress and setting his own pile of blankets aside. When Luke looks up at him, Fox manages a smile that hopefully doesn’t look too much like a grimace, and says, “I’ll find out whatever I can, but—”

“But that man doesn’t like you either,” Luke says, too sharp, too aware for a boy of six. Fox’s breath rasps in his throat, and he nods.

“He doesn’t like anyone, I'm pretty sure,” he says, makes it a joke even when it’s really not. “That’s how the Sith are.”

“He’s scary,” Luke confesses. He climbs up onto the mattress, then right into Fox’s lap, and Fox wraps his arms around him on instinct. “He made Aunt Beru cry.”

“Lord Vader makes a lot of people cry,” Fox says, and when Luke buries his nose in his blacks, he sighs, stroking blond hair that hasn’t seen a brush in a while. For that matter, Luke looks like he hasn’t even changed his clothes in several days; they’re wrinkled and stained, and Fox is willing to bet that Vader hasn’t let anyone close enough to even see the boy since he brought him on board.

“Hey,” he says softly. “You know how to use the sonics?”

“In the shower?” Luke looks up at him, frowning. “Of course I do, I'm _six_.”

Fox snorts, amused. “All right, sorry for asking. Then why don’t you go take a shower while I make the bed? There are some more clothes in here, right?”

Luke hesitates, expression sliding towards mulish. “Aunt Beru made me these,” he says at length. “I don’t want to change.”

Kriff. Fox wrestles with his possible responses, then offers, “Then why don’t we put them aside, so they don’t get damaged? You can wear something else, and we can keep these somewhere special.”

Luke mulls that over for a moment before he nods. “Okay,” he says, and slides off Fox’s lap, though he doesn’t let go of his hand. Fox lets himself be pulled over to the closet, which is full of clothes that are all uniformly black and bland, severe and almost unsettling. Luke stares up at them for a long moment, then looks at Fox, and Fox can see the expression on his face, the edges of fear and anger and the blanket unhappiness there. It makes his chest ache, makes him think of millions of clones in identical armor, and he grimaces.

“Sorry, kid,” he says. “Looks like there's not much choice.”

“But I don’t _want_ to wear those,” Luke says, and it’s quiet, isn't a protest. Fox might feel better if it was.

“I know,” he says grimly, and thinks of his own armor, sitting out in the main room. Marked with red, at least, but—not _his_ patterns of red. All the Guard have the same red edging now, and it’s better than plain white, but not by much at all. “I know, Luke, but sometimes what we want doesn’t matter to other people. Until we can tell them _no_ , we just have to go along with it.”

“We can't tell that man no?” Luke asks.

Fox shakes his head, throat tight. “I can't,” he says.

“He has your brothers.” Luke's eyes are very blue and very sad, and his grip on Fox’s hand is bruisingly tight. “Do you have a lot of them?”

Fox hesitates. “Not— _brothers_ ,” he says. “ _Vode_. It’s Mando’a. It means we’re brothers on the battlefield, and brothers in peace. We’re clones, so we’re all the same person in a way, but we’re also _vode_ , because we fight together and believe the same things.”

“ _Vode_ ,” Luke repeats, and smiles. “Mando’a. You're Mando’a too?”

“Mandalorian,” Fox corrects, and can't help a faint smile. Remembers some of the more outgoing kids in the Senate Building, and says, “After your shower, I’ll teach you a Mando’a curse, if you want.”

Luke grins at him, delighted. “And I can _use_ it?” he asks.

“Not at Vader,” Fox says quickly, because _that’s_ a disaster he can see coming from a kilometer away. “But yeah, you can use it.”

“Okay,” Luke says, much more willing now. He looks up at the rows of black fabric again, and asks, “Can you get that one for me, please?”

“This one?” Fox tugs it off its hook, not seeing any difference from the others but not about to protest, and hands it over. “You need help turning the sonics on?”

Luke takes it, then gathers it up in his arms and shakes his head. “They're easier than Uncle Owen’s.” Hesitates, watching Fox, and then asks, “You're going to stay?”

Fox’s chest twists, and he goes down on one knee, meeting Luke's eyes squarely. “I'm not leaving,” he says quietly, firmly, and Luke's expression crumples with relief. He lunges forward, throwing his arms around Fox’s neck for a brief, hard hug, then pulls away, heading for the fresher at a run.

Left alone in the small bedroom, Fox rises, takes a step, and then sinks down on the mattress again. Breathes in, breathes out, and buries his face in his hands, knotting his fingers in his precisely regulation-length hair. Once he kept it longer, showing off the grey in the temples, the bit of difference, the bit of individuality that he didn’t have to work for, but was decanted with. It’s all been trimmed down, and he can't remember what his thoughts were. Can't even remember if he had any, but—he must have. There must have been something in him that made the decision, even if he can't remember it now.

Or maybe there was nothing at all, everything filed away until Fox was left with less personality than the droids they used to fight, nothing but orders inside his head. Somehow, that’s a more terrifying thought than anything else.

Raising his head, Fox closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them, forces himself to his feet and into movement. He makes the bed, military corners and straight lines, then neatly folds the extra blankets and tries to figure out where he’s going to sleep. In the same room, given how many threats Luke is likely facing. Maybe in front of the door. It won't be the first time he’s been on a protection detail, but—

It’s his first time doing it alone.

Fox’s hands curl into fists, and he has to force himself to breathe in. Staying here was partially because of Vader's order, because of Luke's safety, but at the same time, it’s selfish. He doesn’t know that he could bear walking back to his temporary quarters, seeing all the clones in the hall, none of them distinguishable in any way from one another. It’s like a nightmare, but there's no waking up from this one.

All of his brothers are going to fight and die for the Empire, without any hope of freedom. Without any understanding that something is wrong, that something has been taken from them. Without any knowledge that they're _people_ under their blank white helmets.

It makes Fox nauseous, makes his throat burn. He’s going to have to watch it, too. Every moment of it, aware and helpless, trapped on the front lines but unable to warn them. Not a single clone will _care_ , even if he does, and somehow that’s the worst of all.

“Fox?” Luke asks, and Fox startles, turns. Luke is watching him from the doorway, worried, with a bundle of dirty clothes in his arms. He looks strange in black instead of white-grey, too harsh, washed out, and Fox swallows, then reaches out.

“Much better,” he says, trying for a smile. “Where do you want to put those so they’ll be safe?”

“Can I put them under my pillow?” Luke asks. “I don’t want anyone to take them by accident.”

If they do get taken, Fox thinks grimly, it’s not going to be by accident. Vader is the type to try and wipe out all traces of a past life, and while he seems to have mostly left Luke alone so far, Fox doesn’t trust that the trend will continue. “We might need to hide them better than that,” he says, and crouches down beside the bed, digging his fingers into the crack between the frame and the mattress. Luke hangs onto his shoulder, leaning around him to watch, and Fox huffs in quiet victory as he finds the leverage to lift the mattress up.

“Here,” he says. “Lay them as flat as you can on the frame. They’ll be safe here.”

Quickly, Luke ducks forward to do so, spreading the shirts and pants out flat, then sliding back. He hesitates for a moment, then darts in again, digging through the pockets and coming up with a pale, rough rock the size of Fox’s thumbnail. Tucking it into his fist, Luke leans out of the way, and Fox carefully resettles the bed just as it was, hiding the remnants of his old life.

“That man won't find them there?” Luke asks, worried.

Fox wants to lie to him, reassure him, but— “He might,” he says, honest. “But not unless he’s really looking. As long as we don’t make him mad, it should be all right.”

“I won't,” Luke promises solemnly, and twists his fingers into Fox’s again, desperate for contact.

After so many years as just one bland, faceless drone with no wants beyond his duties, no skin contact beyond the absolute necessary, Fox can't say he feels all that different.

“Is that rock from Tatooine?” he asks, gripping Luke's hand in return.

Luke nods quickly, and raises his free hand, opening it to show Fox the jagged-edged stone, vaguely in the shape of an arrowhead. “I was going to paint a sun on it for Aunt Beru,” he says quietly. “But Vader came before I could.”

Stolen, Fox thinks, and it kicks against his ribs, hot and painful like a bruise. Luke was stolen just like the clones were. They're prisoners of the chips inside their heads, and Luke is a prisoner of Vader, and there's no escape for any of them.

“If he didn’t take it away from you before, I don’t think he will,” Fox says, all the comfort he can offer. “Do you want to keep it with you?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Luke says immediately, clutching it close to his chest, tightly wrapped in his fist.

A rock and a pair of worn clothes, Fox thinks, and has to swallow. That’s all Luke has left. He doesn’t even know if his aunt and uncle are alive. All because Vader wants to keep Anakin Skywalker's son as a karking trophy.

“Then keep it,” Fox says quietly, and when Luke glances up at him, he tries to smile. “Let’s find you a hairbrush, all right?”

Luke drops his eyes back to the rock, and says, “Aunt Beru used to tell me that I had hair like a womp rat’s nest.”

“Yeah? She sounds like a clever woman.” Fox tugs on one of the knots in Luke's fine blond hair, and when Luke makes a noise of offense, he snorts. “If we get you looking like a Human and not a womp rat nest, we can go out,” he bargains.

“Out?” Luke says hopefully. “Is that okay?”

Vader didn’t tell Fox not to let Luke leave, just to stay with him. And if he takes umbrage—well. Fox will be careful, but he needs more weapons than just a blaster and a vibroblade if he’s going to be the lone security detail for a kid. And if he’s going to be protecting Luke from outside enemies and Vader in equal measure, _he_ needs to be the one picking his weapons. He can't rely on droids, or even clones, as much as that thought aches.

“Yeah,” he says, and nudges Luke forward. “Go find a seat. I’ll get a brush.”

“Okay,” Luke says obediently, and pulls away, darting into the main room. Fox detours to the fresher, and has to lean against the counter for a moment, trying not to let his hands shake.

The face in the mirror could be any clone with grey in their hair, anyone at all, and just for a moment Fox thinks of the bold and obvious facial tattoos that so many brothers got and understands the need for them completely.

His hair is too short to do much with, but he scrubs a hand through it defiantly, mussing it as much as he can, and resolves to skip every mandated trim from now until he can look in the mirror without wanting to flinch.

Maybe he’ll look good with long hair, he thinks, tiredly, desperately amused. Put it back in a tail, or up in a bun like that one trooper from the 501st. Just—anything to make his face _his_ again.

“Fox?” Luke calls, and Fox shoves away from the mirror, grabbing a comb from the counter.

“I'm here,” he says, stepping out just as the door chime sounds.

Luke startles like a bird, head whipping around. Not a sound he’s used to, Fox thinks grimly, and draws his vibroblade, straightening. “Wait here,” he tells Luke, and stalks to the door, keying it open. He keeps the blade hidden, only lets the door slide halfway open before he jabs the button to stop it, and carefully doesn’t grimace at the sight of a clone in a grey uniform on the other side. There's no telling who he used to be, no hint of identity beyond the uniform, and Fox tries very hard not to think that just this morning, he was exactly the same.

“Yes?” he asks curtly.

The clone salutes, then offers the case he’s carrying. “Commander, I was ordered to retrieve your Coruscant Guard armor and replace it with the standard model. May I enter to collect it?”

Fox’s stomach drops, as sudden and gutting as a failure in the artificial gravity. He has to put a hand on the door to brace himself, has to breathe carefully for a moment. His armor is _his_. It might not be his old armor, carefully and beautifully painted, but—

If he has to wear the plain white plastoid that every other clone on the ship is sporting, he thinks he’s going to be sick.

The idea that he’d actually get a choice is laughable, though.

“Of course,” Fox manages, just barely able to keep his voice steady. He steps back, keying the door the rest of the way open, and lets the clone enter. “It’s on the chair.”

Quickly, efficiently, without so much as glancing at Luke, the clone collects Fox’s red-painted armor, then turns, offers him a polite salute, and says, “If there are any problems, sir, please contact the armory.”

Perfectly bland, perfectly unobjectionable. Fox tries not to wonder who this clone used to be, before the chip activated, because if he starts he won't stop until he goes fully mad. “Thank you,” he manages, and doesn’t look at the pile of white and red in the clone’s arms. Another thing lost to him, but—he won't let himself mourn it.

It’s enough that he has himself back. It has to be.

That doesn’t stop him from sagging against the door as it closes, though. Doesn’t stop him from bowing his head, fighting for breath for a long moment when his chest feels too tight, like panic. It’s just armor, just armor, but—

Once, armor showed who a clone _was_. Fox already lost the haircut, the position that made him who he used to be. Now the armor is gone as well. It’s like Vader gave him back his identity only to start stripping it from him one piece at a time.

“Fox?” Luke asks again, and a small hand touches Fox’s arm. Fox doesn’t let himself flinch, even though he wants to. Instead, he turns, dropping to one knee and sheathing his vibroblade in one quick motion, then gathering Luke up in his arms and hauling him up. He stands, taking Luke with him, and Luke yelps in delighted alarm and grabs for him.

“Sorry, Luke, I got distracted. Where were we?” he asks, and drops down on the couch Luke had picked.

Luke wiggles around to sit fully in his lap. “Hair-brushing,” he says determinedly. “Then can we go see the fighters?”

The main armory is close enough to the hangar where the TIE fighters are kept that they won't have to travel too far, so Fox nods. “If you want,” he agrees, and starts carefully untangling the knots in Luke's hair, easing the comb through. One of his batchmates kept their hair long enough to need a comb during training, and Fox had helped him with it more than once, so—this at least is familiar.

“What’s in the box?” Luke asks curiously, and Fox keeps his breathing even, doesn’t let the pulls of the comb falter.

“Armor,” he says. “Lord Vader transferred me to his own command, so I could take care of you, which means I can't wear my Guard armor anymore.”

“But aren’t you still a guard?” Luke asks, squirming as Fox works on a particularly stubborn knot. “You're guarding me, aren’t you?”

 _I’ll always be a Guard,_ Fox doesn’t say, but—he feels that way, a little. The Coruscant Guard was his from the moment of its creation, and no one can pry that out of his soul.

That’s the past, though. He can't focus on that.

“Different kind of guard,” he says, and then, with a flicker of slightly morbid curiosity, “Do you know who your mom is?”

Luke shakes his head. “Uncle Owen said she died,” he answers. “But she was really pretty and really smart.”

If Luke was on Tatooine, there's every chance he was being hidden with Anakin's family, and Fox wonders a little grimly whether his mother really was Padmé Amidala. Anakin seemed devoted to her, after all; everyone in the Senate knew the rumors, even if they kept their relationship quiet.

Given her stance opposing the war and the Chancellor, it makes sense that any children she had would be a secret, smuggled to safety when the Empire rose. And Tatooine would be a good place to hide them, especially with Anakin's ties there.

“I know who she was,” Fox says, because really, what’s the harm? Giving a little boy a few good memories of a woman who could potentially be his mother, especially when there's no one left to contradict it, can't hurt anything. “Her name was Padmé Amidala, and she was the youngest queen ever elected on the planet Naboo.”

“A _queen_?” Luke demands, and turns around to stare at Fox with wide eyes. “My mom was a _queen_?”

Fox nods, throat tight. The look on Luke's face makes it a little hard to breathe. “She was a queen, and then she became a Senator,” he confirms. “And your father was one of the Jedi who helped save her whole planet.”

Luke's expression slips, twists, but his gaze still doesn’t waver from Fox. “He was a Jedi? But—the Jedi weren’t _real_ ,” he says, a whisper of protest.

Fox closes his eyes, thinks of the Temple, thinks of what every brother would have said if asked just six years ago. _We were made for the Jedi_.

It’s still true. They were made for the Jedi, raised for them, trained for them. But the Sith twisted the clones into the Jedi's executioners, and there's no going back from that.

“No, Luke,” he says. “The Jedi were real. They tried to save us, but they lost.”

They lost, and then the whole world ended, and Fox and his brothers were part of the reason why.

“Where’re we going?” Luke mumbles into Fox’s shoulder, slumped over the plastoid of his blank armor.

“The med bay,” Fox answers, a little amused, and hitches Luke up higher on his hip. Apparently, if he ever needs to tire Luke out, setting him loose to run around the TIE fighters is a good way to manage it.

That, at least, makes Luke stir, and he picks his head up with a worried frown. “Are you hurt?” he asks.

“No,” Fox says, rubbing his back as soothingly as he can. “But it would be good to have a first aid kit in our rooms.”

Especially because it’s relatively easy to hide an assassin among the medical personnel, since most of them aren’t clones anymore. They're all checked, all verified, but—Fox knows how easy it is to fake things like that. He won't trust Luke to any of them unless he’s standing right there the whole time, and he definitely won't be visiting for any of his own wounds unless he has to.

The rooms are secure, and they'll be safe there. But Fox knows precisely how many people would be interested in hurting a child close to Vader, on all sides of conflict, and he isn't about to risk putting Luke in danger.

“Oh. That makes sense.” Luke wiggles a little, apparently rousing enough that he’s ready to walk again, and Fox lets him slide down, drops him on his feet and takes his hand instead. Their trip to the armory netted him four more concealed blades, several flash-bang grenades, another blaster pistol, and a vibrosword and blaster rifle he had sent back to their quarters. He’d asked about cortosis-covered blades, too, but—there's every chance that Vader will refuse the request, since it’s a metal meant to stop lightsabers in particular.

“A droid usually brings you dinner, right?” he asks.

Luke nods, but wrinkles his nose. “It all tastes weird,” he says.

“Not like planet-based food at all,” Fox agrees, a little amused, and doesn’t look at the squad of troopers who march past, perfectly featureless. He matches them now, after all. Just one of millions, another stamped-out clone from the top of his head to the bottom of his boots. It makes his skin crawl.

“You’ll get used to it,” he says, as much to himself as to Luke. Knows it isn't true, but—he hopes. He _needs_ to be able to believe that.

“I guess,” Luke says, unenthusiastic, and tugs a little on Fox’s hand. “Is that it?”

“The med bay? Yes, that’s it.” Fox pulls him a little closer and says, “Stay next to me, all right?”

“Okay.” Luke tightens his grip on Fox’s hand, practically sticking himself to his leg, and Fox waves the doors open.

Almost immediately, there are steps in the otherwise nearly-silent bay, and a clone medic rounds one of the partitions, carrying a datapad, expression the same bland, vaguely pleasant look that makes Fox’s skin crawl. He looks Fox over, gaze sliding to Luke for half a moment before it moves back to Fox’s face, and says, “CT number, please.”

“CC-1010,” Fox says, and it feels like ashes in his mouth. That number used to be him, but now it just _burns_. They took away everything but that, and Fox still has to use it, still has to rely on it. He _hates_ it. “What’s your CT?”

“CM-4197,” the medic answers. He glances down at his pad, then up again, and offers a salute. “Commander, how can I help?”

Fox doesn’t let himself react. “I need a medical kit prepared,” he says curtly. “Full battlefield pack, ready as soon as possible.”

The medic doesn’t ask what it’s for, doesn’t even hesitate, though Fox _knows_ that kind of request would have raised eyebrows from any medic before the chips activated. Forget eyebrows—any of the Guard’s medics would have marched him over to a bed and made him tell them exactly what he wanted something like that for. He would have been more likely to get a medic tagging along than the med kit, too.

“Yes, sir,” is all the clone says. “Where should I send it?”

“Nowhere,” Fox says. “I’ll wait for it.”

“Yes, sir. Fifteen minutes, please.” The medic turns away, and Fox watches him go, eyeing his hair. It’s all curls, regulation high and tight but still very much not standard. An aberrant clone, but—well. Medics are valuable enough that it probably would matter less, even if the Empire frowns on such things.

Fox thinks he remembers that aberration, too, especially combined with the sweeping, curling tattoo in deep golden-orange that twists over his cheekbone on one side. One of the battalions had a medic with curly hair and a facial tattoo, but for the life of him he can't remember which one. It feels a little like a betrayal of the clone in question, now, and Fox has to breathe through the guilty fist around his lungs.

“We’re waiting here?” Luke whispers, hushed, and he’s eyeing the space around them like he’s worried about even moving too fast.

“Just for a few minutes,” Fox answers quietly, crouching down to run a hand over his hair. He gets being unnerved by the huge, sterile bay, with bodies in the beds along the walls. There's another medic working, this one not a clone, but she seems far more interested in the chart than in them, so Fox ignores her right back. “Just stay close to me and you’ll be fine.”

Luke nods solemnly, tightening his grip on Fox’s hand again. “They all look like you,” he says, gaze flickering over to the beds.

Fox smiles a little. “We’re clones of the same man, so we’re all identical,” he reminds Luke, then straightens. Turns, glancing at the first few brothers in the beds closest to them, and then pauses. There's no difference in uniform, in posture, in expression, but—Fox knows the scar that twists around the closest clone’s eye. Would know it in the dark, by touch alone, and has to close his eyes for a long, long moment.

“Fox?” Luke whispers.

Fox opens his eyes, smiles at him as best he can. “Want to meet a friend of mine?” he asks, and Luke nods quickly. “Good, I’ll introduce you. Keep your voice down, though. His head probably hurts.”

“I will,” Luke promises, and Fox rises to his feet, then leads him across the room to where Cody is lying, stretched out flat in the bed. There’s a bare spot where his hair was shaved, stitches in his scalp, but he looks otherwise fine, and as Fox comes to a stop beside him, he opens his eyes.

For a moment, Fox almost expects to see something behind them. _Wants_ to, more than anything, because Cody was someone even Fox could lean on, wicked and droll and reckless, always a face to look for in a crowd. But his dark eyes settle on Fox with only the vaguest flicker of recognition, and he says roughly, “CC-1010. I thought you were taking my shift on the bridge.”

“I was reassigned to guard detail,” Fox says, and only a vast amount of effort keeps his voice even. “How is your head, Cody?”

Cody frowns, just a little, but doesn’t show any other sort of reaction. “I’ll be back on shift by tomorrow,” he reports, and it really is a report, bland and unhesitating and just as meaningless as a recitation of the mess’s dinner menu. Status report, Fox thinks, and has to close his eyes, can't even begin to look at Cody's familiar face and those unfamiliar eyes.

Once upon a time, Cody used to seek him out whenever the 212th had leave on Coruscant. Once upon a time, Fox knew Cody better than he knew anyone. Once upon a time he’d _thought_ —

But it doesn’t matter now. It probably never did.

“Luke, this is Commander Cody,” he says quietly. “He was a hero of the war. Cody, this is Luke Skywalker.”

The name doesn’t stir a reaction, either. “Skywalker,” Cody says calmly, and inclines his head. Luke doesn’t even offer that much; he ducks back, burying his face in Fox’s armor, and doesn’t make eye contact.

A little surprised, because Luke has hardly seemed shy before this, Fox rests a hand on Luke's shoulders, then casts around for a reason to have come over in the first place. Remembers, belatedly, the report on his datapad, and says, “That prototype blaster model—I didn’t get a chance to review the weapons test report before Lord Vader reassigned me. I’ll send it on to you as soon as I can.”

“Appreciated, CC-1010,” Cody says, and seemingly satisfied with the interaction, he closes his eyes again.

Fox doesn’t bother arguing. He turns away, pulling Luke with him, and leaves Cody to whatever he’s dreaming about.

If Fox ever dreamed, when the chip was active, he can't remember it at all.

“Are you all right?” he asks with a frown, once they're out of easy hearing distance. Luke is still clinging, not quite looking anywhere, but at Fox’s question he grabs his arm and tugs, and Fox leans down, scoops him up. Luke's not huge for a six-year-old, is thin and kind of reedy, and it’s not a strain to hoist him up and let him burrow into Fox’s arms. The helmet gets in the way, but Luke seems grateful anyway.

“He feels _wrong_ ,” Luke says, muffled. “There's something wrong with him.”

Fox blinks, putting a hand on Luke's back. “Because he’s a clone?” he asks, perturbed, because Luke hasn’t had that reaction to him.

Luke instantly shakes his head. “You're okay,” he says. “But he’s not.”

Fox hesitates, but—

What are the odds that Anakin Skywalker's kid would be Force-sensitive? High, potentially. There were families that produced Jedi, once, though the Empire has mostly wiped them out. And if he’s empathic like a Jedi, feeling how the clones are with their chips active—

Fox thinks of Cody's bland expression, the calm focus on duty, and grimaces. He can imagine that they feel plenty different than an un-chipped person.

“He didn’t used to be like that,” he says quietly. “When he was my friend, he was different.”

All the clones were different. That was how they made themselves into people. And Cody—he was someone vivid. A person in full, and a person Fox cared deeply about, even if he never had a chance.

“But he changed?” Luke asks, lifting his head enough to eye Fox. Not suspicious, quite, but…uncertain, maybe.

“We all changed,” Fox confirms, but before he has to say any more, the quiet sound of boots on the tile makes him turn to find the medic approaching. His name is buried somewhere in Fox’s memory, and for a moment he thinks of calling up the clone’s file—

But that won't matter. A clone’s chosen name wasn’t recorded in any official files, and after Order 66 went out, no clone would bother to use them, or remember them.

The medic’s name is gone, lost forever, and somehow that feels as gutting as waking up alone all over again.

“Here you are, Commander,” the medic says perfunctorily, and then pauses, the med kit halfway outstretched. He looks at Luke, brow furrowing faintly, and Fox lets Luke slip down to his feet, reaching for the pack.

“Thank you,” he says, testing the weight. Judging by how heavy it is, there’s even a bone-mender in there, and he lets out a silent breath of relief. That means, short of a deadly wound, he can treat himself in their quarters and not leave Luke vulnerable. If there are as many threats coming as Vader implied, it’s best to take every possible precaution.

“Of course, sir.” The medic steps back, the intertwining lines on his cheek catching the light for a moment, and then asks, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No,” Fox says. “That will be everything, thank you.” He shoulders the pack, then turns for the door, Luke practically glued to his leg, and doesn’t let himself glance back at Cody lying still in his bed.

Luke stays quiet until they're several halls away, heading for the lift back to the residential floors. Then, quiet, he says, “Seeing your friend made you sad.”

“Yeah,” Fox says, a little gruff. “He doesn’t remember that we were friends, I think.”

“Oh.” Luke looks away, one fist curled tight at his side. When he opens his fingers, Fox catches a glimpse of his sharp-edge rock before Luke quickly closes them again. “Will he ever remember you were friends?”

“No,” Fox says, quiet, raw, and it aches right down to his bones. “I don’t think he will.”

After all, there's no use hoping. Nothing to be done. Millions of clones and all of them have chips, all of them act just like Cody, none of them see anything wrong with it. Fox has no idea how to deactivate the chips, or even if it can be done. Vader broke his, but—

There are no Jedi left, and if there were, the odds that they could be convinced to sit down and play brain surgeon for the troopers hunting them—it just wouldn’t make sense for anyone involved. And even then, if they could break a chip a minute, twelve hours a day, it still wouldn't be enough to free all the clones.

He sighs, pulling his helmet off as they approach the lift, and tucks it under one arm. There are more important things to focus on right now. “Have you ever held a vibroblade?” he asks Luke, trying to figure out how soon to start his training, and where they _need_ to start. If Fox ends up incapacitated, he wants Luke to be able to get away, get somewhere safe even if someone is trying to grab him.

Silence answers him, and Fox’s heartbeat falters.

Instantly, as it registers, he wrenches around, dropping the med kit and his helmet. They thump to the floor, but Fox can't pay them any mind, because there's no child behind him, no small figure in the hall. Just clones and officers, moving quickly and with purpose, and Fox’s heart _drops_.

“Luke?” he calls, but there's no answer. “ _Luke_!”

No one even glances over, and Fox leaves both med kit and helmet where they fell and _runs._

Shank’s heartbeat is just a little too quick, no matter how steady his hands are on the hypo cartridges he’s sorting. He’s off-balance, not quite unnerved but maybe the next best thing, and—

That commander. He didn’t act like all the rest.

There wasn’t any noticeable difference, really. Nothing that stood out except the kid, and that could be explained by a _vod_ with experience in the nurseries on Kamino getting assigned babysitting duties. Training doesn’t disappear, after all, under the chip’s influence. It just…fades. Gets blunted.

The clones used to be some of the most skilled soldiers in the galaxy, and now they can hardly hit what they shoot at.

Two cannisters click against each other dangerously hard, and Shank curses inwardly, careful not to let any hint of it show on his face. Slowly, carefully, he puts down the one he’s holding, leaning against the table for a moment as he tries to stop himself from looking up the commander. It would be easy to pull up his file again, to get a more complete accounting than simply noting the requested medical supplies on his record. There wasn’t anything immediately noticeable in his file, but—

Shank can't go digging, though. Someone will notice, and he’s stayed under the radar too long to blow his cover now.

Gritting his teeth, he picks up the cannister, checks it, and sets it with the others. Takes the next, and wonders, because he can't stop himself, what CC-1010 wanted with Cody. Seeing him by Cody's bed was almost enough to make Shank leave the half-packed kit and confront him, but that would have ended in disaster no matter what. Cody wouldn’t care, not as he is now, and CC-1010 could have reported Shank. A review is the _last_ thing Shank needs or wants.

It irks, though. It irks him, and he wants to know, and he has to breathe through it, careful and controlled.

He’s where he is for a reason. Staying here is important, or he would have ducked out and run when the Empire rose. But his _vode_ need him. They need someone who is here for _them_ , not the Empire, and Shank is only one person, but that’s a hell of a lot better than none.

That commander, though.

Shank didn’t recognize him. Couldn’t, with the blank armor and perfectly identical face. Doesn’t know the CC number off the top of his head, can't look into it, but—

The way he’d treated the kid made Shank pay attention. Maybe there was a flicker of something, or maybe there was just a little _more_ of something than Shank is used to seeing. Whatever it was, it made him want to dig, want to push, even when it’s the last thing Shank should be doing.

Maybe he has a defective chip, Shank thinks, and grimaces. Not like Tup. Not _corrupted_. But if it degraded a little, or weakened, that could be enough to let a little personality slip through.

Shank doesn’t reach up, doesn’t touch the scar hidden under his curls. Just for a moment, though, he misses Kix _desperately_ , so much it takes his breath away. Kix knew the truth, and he would at the very least be _someone_ familiar, someone to lean on and plan with and work alongside.

Shank’s been alone among ghosts for six years now, and it’s wearing at him.

Determinedly, stubbornly, he finishes the case of cartridges that someone in inventory accidentally mixed, then puts the sorted ones away and moves to find the next box. Can't resist a glance at Cody as he passes, under the guise of checking his chart, and it’s a relief that his concussion wasn’t severe enough to warrant more time in the med bay, but at the same time, it aches to have to let him go. Shank can count on both hands the number of times he’s seen Cody in the last six years, and after a whole war as Ghost Company’s medic, it’s a harsh adjustment. The bland sort of robotic motions all the clones have now hurts especially where Cody is concerned, but—

Better to be here, watching over them, than somewhere else where he couldn’t. Shank’s a medic. He’ll do his duty to his _vode_ no matter what. No one else is going to, after all.

Cody doesn’t do more than glance at him before closing his eyes again, but Shank’s had years of not letting any sort of emotion show on his face by now. He buries the hurt and the flare of anger at the chips’ control deep and doesn’t waver as he moves on to the next task.

“Remember to take lunch,” Doctor Jissard says distractedly as she passes, thumbing through the med-droid’s readouts, and Shank glances at the clock, then puts down the box he was about to sort.

“Yes, Doctor,” he says, but she doesn’t even look back, scowling down at her pad as she fights with the tetchy coding for one of the surgery programs. That irks, too, but at least it’s useful that she’s forever dismissive and distracted. She trusts Shank’s skills enough to leave him be regardless of what injuries come in, which lets her deal with more delicate operations, and they mostly stay out of each other’s way.

Shank tells himself it’s fine, wrestles down the urge to snap, and moves towards the door. The mess won't be much of an escape, not with so many clones there, controlled and chipped and _enslaved_ , but at least it will be a change of scenery. Shank’s had enough psych training to know the value of something as simple as that. He’ll get food, and take a breather, and then when he comes back maybe the urge to do something stupid will be a little more manageable.

Ten steps down the quiet hall, however, the sight of a running figure stops Shank in his tracks.

It’s the kid who was with the commander, blond and young and dressed in unrelieved black. He’s obviously in distress, tear-tracks on his cheeks, breath coming in pants, and as a trooper emerges from a room along the hall he wrenches away, almost falls over himself trying to avoid the clone. Ducks, like he’s ready to get hit, and Shank takes a step forward before he can help himself.

It’s enough. Wide blue eyes dart to him, and a look of relief fills the kid’s face. He bolts for Shank, stumbling to a stop just a few feet away, and says desperately, “Where’s Fox? I can't find him!”

Fox. Something bright like shock jars through Shank’s chest. That’s—a name, not a number. A _familiar_ name—Fox was the commander of the Coruscant Guard once, wasn’t he? Is that who the kid’s guard is now?

Shank can't afford to give himself away, but the kid is crying. Flicking a glance towards the retreating trooper, Shank waits until he’s rounded the corner and then goes down to one knee in front of the boy, putting himself on eye-level. “You got lost?” he asks.

The boy nods quickly, and raises a hand, opening his fist to show Shank the pale stone resting on his palm. “I dropped my rock,” he says, distressed. “And when I found it Fox was gone. And I couldn’t—”

His voice wavers, and Shank carefully doesn’t wince. “You should wait here,” he says. “If you get lost or separated, you should always try to stay where you are so they can find you.”

If it’s true for escort missions, it’s true for babysitting. Probably. It’s not like being a combat medic to an idiot Jedi with a death wish gave Shank a lot of experience with kids.

The kid glances at the doors of the med bay, hesitates. “I don’t want to go in there,” he says.

Shank doesn’t roll his eyes. He _doesn’t_. The number of times he heard General Kenobi say the exact same thing, though, in that same petulant tone of voice—

“You don’t have to go in,” he says, as patiently as he’s able. “Waiting out here is fine. I’ll stay with you.”

“Okay.” The kid sounds relieved, and he watches as Shank rises to his feet, then says, “I'm—”

“ _Luke_!”

The cry is loud enough to be startling, and Shank almost twitches towards his knife, but manages to contain himself. Luke spins, his whole face lighting up, and he launches himself down the hallway at a flat-out run. The commander is approaching, helmet abandoned, and—

It’s gutting, _wrenching_ , to see the open emotion on his face.

Shank takes a step back, unbalanced, caught off guard. He’s been looking for a reaction in hundreds of thousands of similar faces for _years_ now, but—somehow seeing it is completely unexpected.

That’s definitely emotion, though. Fox hits the ground on his knees, opens his arms, and the relief on his face is so clear and obvious it feels like a blow in Shank’s chest. Luke crashes into him, and Fox sweeps him up in his arms, hugging him tightly. He runs a hand over Luke's hair, checks him for bruises, hauls him up until Luke can wrap his arms around Fox’s neck like a particularly clingy cephalopod, and the wash of half-beaten fear is so obvious, so _strange_ to see on a clone’s face, that Shank can't quite breathe.

That’s not just a babysitter letting a charge climb all over him. That’s _care_ , and Shank can't remember the last time he saw it in one of his _vode_.

“I looked, I looked for you,” Luke is saying, babbling, still clearly in distress. “But everyone has white and I didn’t know—”

“I know, I know,” Fox says soothingly, rubbing a hand over his back. He rises to his feet, bringing Luke with him, and Luke wraps his arms and legs around him and _clings_. Fox doesn’t even try to make him let go, just blows out a breath and says, “Just—how about you hold on to me next time we’re out? No getting distracted, all right?”

“I dropped my rock,” Luke says, muffled. “I'm sorry, Fox.”

“You're fine,” Fox says, just a little gruff. “What if we put it on a string, so you could wear it around your neck? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about dropping it.”

“Okay,” Luke agrees, and Fox blows out a heavy breath, smooths a hand over the back of his head, and glances up at Shank. There's a flicker, a twist of expression Shank can't quite read—

(And _kriff_ , but Shank never thought he’d be relieved by uncertainty, or not being able to make out someone’s emotions, but there _are_ emotions and Fox is _having_ them and he’s _not hiding_ _them_ , and Shank kind of wants to hit something out of sheer, wrenching _relief_ )

—and then Fox nods sharply to Shank and says, “Thank you for finding him.”

Shank wants to grab him, too. Shank wants to grab him and shake him and hang onto his _face_ and just watch that awareness move through his eyes. He knows who he is. He has a _name_.

Out of the thousands of ghosts on board, Shank finally found a living soul.

“Of course, Commander,” he says, hanging onto control and restraint by his fingernails. He doesn’t grab Fox, because he has no idea why he’s awake and aware, doesn’t want to risk that it’s some sort of trap. Not _yet_. Not before Shank can do some slow, discrete digging and figure out what’s going on.

Inclining his head, Fox turns away, hoisting Luke up a bit higher on his hip. “Come on,” he tells Luke. “I think that’s more excitement than my heart can take for the day. You’re more stressful than three Senators combined.”

Luke giggles, rubbing the wetness away from his face. It’s obvious he doesn’t take the griping to heart, just loops an arm around Fox’s neck and settles against his shoulder, then waves to Shank. “Like Senator Amidala?” he asks. Shank waves back, just a quick, furtive motion, but it makes Luke smile.

“ _No one_ was as stressful as Senator Amidala,” Fox says, and glances back. Shank offers him a textbook salute, not letting any of his humor show, not letting his _relief_ show, but—

He feels lighter than he has since Kix disappeared and he woke up from brain surgery to a world where the Jedi were traitors to the Republic. Just—one clone who’s himself. One clone who has a name. That’s _enough_.

He watches Fox and Luke until they disappear around the corner, and then stands there for a moment, simply breathing.

It doesn’t make the world right, not in the least. But _slagging kriff_ does it make it so much easier to bear.

That evening, when Luke has eaten dinner and is curled up on the couch with a blanket and a datapad, the door chimes again. This time, though, Fox is expecting it, and he answers it immediately, though he keeps his vibroblade in one hand.

The trooper on the other side salutes, and says, “Commander, the items you requested.”

“Thank you,” Fox says, and takes the box. He nods in response to the next salute, then closes the door and sets the box on the table. His armor is close at hand, cleaned and ready, and he lays it out slowly on the provided sheet of plastic, with an air of ritual he remembers from the very first time. It’s deliberate, careful, and he takes more care than the tough plastoid likely requires, but—

A trooper is their armor. It _matters_.

Behind him, there's a rustle, then the soft pad of feet. A moment later, Luke, still wrapped in the blanket, leans over Fox’s shoulder as best he can, peering at the containers of paint that Fox is setting out.

“What are you doing?” he asks curiously.

Fox hooks an arm around his waist, pulls him up and into his lap. The fear from earlier is still far too close, the idea of losing the one person in this whole galaxy who Fox can care about, and who can care in return. The only person who sees Fox as something more than a weapon to be aimed and fired, who knows Fox’s name and cares enough to use it.

He hadn’t realized how much that mattered until Luke was gone.

“Painting,” he says, laying the brushes beside the paint. There are three different shades of red, a distinct difference from his old armor, but—that’s good. He’s not who he used to be, and his armor should change with him. “You couldn’t tell who I was, right? When you were lost. Now you’ll be able to.”

With a serious expression, Luke looks over the pieces of armor, then reaches out. He touches the _kama_ , plain black for right now, and then asks, “What’s this?”

“It’s called a _kama_ ,” Fox says, and shows him how thick the material is, the way it hardly flexes. “It stops most blaster bolts, and it protects your legs from the backdraft of a jetpack.”

Luke's face brightens. “ _I_ want to use a jetpack,” he says enthusiastically.

Fox chuckles, thinking of how many cadets on Kamino were the same way. _He_ was that way, once. “Our genetic template was a man named Jango Fett,” he says. “The best bounty hunter in the galaxy. He’s the one who taught me how to use a jetpack. And once you're old enough, I’ll teach you.”

“He was like your dad?” Luke asks, glancing up at him.

Fox hesitates. Jango had only really been interested in Boba, though he’d stepped in for training sometimes with Fox and the other commanders. “I wanted him to be,” he allows after a moment. “But he wasn’t really.”

“Oh.” Luke frowns, apparently unhappy with this answer.

Before he can get upset, Fox reaches around him to crack open the first container of paint. “All the clones used to paint their armor,” he says. “It was the way we could tell each other apart. I always liked red a lot.”

“Did they forget that, too?” Luke asks. “All their armor is white now.”

“Yeah,” Fox says, rough in his throat. “They forgot. But I didn’t. And you won't, right?”

Luke shakes his head, solemn. “Never,” he promises. “What are you going to paint?”

Fox has been considering that since he made his decision. His old armor had the symbol of the Senate, big and bold across the chest, but—

There's no Senate anymore. Just an Empire, and Fox refuses to wear the Empire’s symbol.

He’d thought, for one mad moment, of using the Jedi Order’s insignia, but that would likely get him and a hell of a lot of his brothers executed right away. But—

Well. He doesn’t have to be _blatant_ about it.

“Wings,” he says, and leans forward to grab a stylus. It only leaves a faint mark on the plastoid, but that’s fine. Fox has a steady hand, and he already knows what he wants. “Wings and feathers here, like a bird. White, and I’ll make the rest of the armor red. And more feathers down the vambraces.”

He can't include the lightsaber from the Order’s insignia. That would give him away in an instant. But a sword, point down instead of reaching skyward, should be enough like the Senate’s old symbol to pass unremarked, and Fox doesn’t need to tell anyone that it’s _his_ sword, his symbol. A quiet rebellion, a sword in the Empire’s heart to protect against it, to keep those under its blade safe.

It’s all Fox can do, but it’s enough.

“Can I paint my rock?” Luke asks, bracing his elbows on the table and watching Fox sketch. “It can be a red sun instead of the yellow one I was going to make Aunt Beru. So we can match.”

Fox smiles, just a little, and rests his temple against the back of Luke's head for a moment. “Of course,” he says, and passes over the smallest brush. “Which red do you want?”

“The brightest one,” Luke says determinedly, and Fox drags it closer for him, opens the top. With an air of ceremony, Luke places the rock on the table, just below one of Fox’s greaves, and asks, “We can still get a string for it if I paint it, right?”

“There's some wire in the box,” Fox says, smiling. “I figured we’d do that when I was done with my armor.”

Luke nods happily. “What’re you going to put on your helmet?” he asks.

Fox closes his eyes. Thinks of Anakin, and of Padmé, and how he’s the one holding their son now, because both of them died fighting the Empire’s birth. Luke is all that’s left of either of them, and—Fox owes them something, surely. Padmé was kind even to the clones, and she fought for them when most of the senators saw them as cannon fodder. Anakin was a hero who tried to save them all, even if he failed in the end.

“Your mother,” he says roughly, “the last time I saw her, in the Senate, she was wearing a hairpiece that looked like wings.” He pulls his bucket closer, then quickly draws out the semicircle he remembers, filling in the feather-like lines across the back of his helmet. “Just like that,” he says, showing it to Luke. “What do you think?”

Carefully, reverently, Luke reaches out to touch the design. “She wore that?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah,” Fox says, equally soft. “She had lots of pretty brown hair, longer than I've ever seen anyone have. And it was always up in some fancy way, but—this is the one that caught my eye.” Maybe because it’s one of his last clear memories before the chip activated. Maybe because he’d been particularly worried about assassins and threats to her safety as whispers of her being a discontent grew. But—Fox remembers.

“I changed my mind,” Luke says firmly. “I don’t want to paint a sun. I want to paint _that_ on my rock.”

“You're sure?” Fox asks, though he’s hardly about to protest. “This paint doesn’t come off.”

Luke nods, set. “I'm sure,” he says determinedly. “I can't meet my mom, but this is hers. I want to wear it, too. Can you help me, Fox?”

Fox’s throat is tight, but he breathes out, nods. “Of course,” he says, and takes the brush that Luke offers him. “I think that sounds like a great idea.”

(Shank catches sight of them a few days later, across the crowded mess hall. Movement and color catch his eye, and he turns to look automatically, across the sea of identical faces and identical uniforms. Looks out into the hall, where two figures are passing, and the flash of crimson is enough to stop his heart in his chest.

Fox’s armor is red. Almost completely red, three shades blending and shifting across the surface, wide white wings on the chestplate like a bird taking flight, its feathers scattered across the vambraces and shoulders. There are more feathers on his helmet, stark against the red, and Luke is walking beside him, practically bouncing as he talks animatedly to Fox, one hand locked around Fox’s gauntlet.

It’s not the Guard’s careful, tasteful tracing of red on the edges of their white armor. This is bold, and blatant, a clear sign to anyone who so much as glances at them that they're something different.

Fox isn't hiding. He’s not concealing the fact that he’s _awake_. It’s obvious, almost a dare. A signal to anyone who knows what to look for that something has changed, and—

Shank looks down at his rations, and for the first time in years, he smiles.)


End file.
